


Echo

by thatsmistertoyou



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Arguing, Drunkenness, Existential Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3605190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsmistertoyou/pseuds/thatsmistertoyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of their breakup, Phil presents Dan with a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo

Phil had always thought that the multiverse theory, in all of its majesty and complexity, could offer one thing to the average person: hope. Hope that everything and anything was possible, and even if something didn’t turn out as one planned, it had turned out alright for someone.

It was a mind-boggling concept, really, and not one that ought be thought about when one was staring down the bottle of their third or fourth Smirnoff Ice - but there Phil was, slumped over on the floor of the kitchen. He finished the bottle off, set it down on the floor a bit harder than he should have, and rested his head back against the fridge.

He didn’t particularly care for the stuff, but it was all they had in the house, so he settled. Thankfully, the pack was full when he had started. Four or five was probably the number he had to reach to be as drunk as he wanted to be, but he forced himself to slow down.

Phil squeezed his eyes shut when he heard Dan’s keys turn the lock.

He knew that there were universes in which this situation would play out like he wanted it to. Probably many of them, because there were two options.

The first, which Phil wanted so desperately to be the more favorable one, was that Dan would see Phil on the floor, raise his eyebrows, and retreat upstairs to his room without saying a word. He would leave and stay gone.

But Phil knew that that outcome was unlikely. Dan would at least come downstairs to check on Phil before he went to sleep. He’d roll Phil onto his side if he had passed out, or, if he was awake, help him into bed and tuck him in. In no universe was Dan too callous to do that.

The second, which Phil couldn’t even admit that he wanted more than anything, would be that Dan would stay with him. Dan would plop down next to Phil, pop open a bottle, toast to them, and drink it. He would press a kiss to the side of Phil’s head, run his fingers in and out of the space between Phil’s, and eventually help Phil into bed, where he would crawl beside him and stay there.

In the first scenario, they were strangers; in the second, they were lovers. Phil wasn’t fortunate enough to live in either of those universes, in which their relationship was easily defined. In reality, they hung somewhere in the middle, both of them too afraid to take a breath so as to displace themselves in one direction or the other.

It had been easier when they were in love.

Phil heard Dan bound up the steps, and saw him materialize in the doorway.

In a way, Phil had accidentally set this scenario up as a test - to see how Dan would react and extrapolate from that. Or he just wanted to stop thinking for a while. Probably the latter.

Dan’s hand lifted to the lightswitch, but hesitated before dropping it to his side. Phil guessed that Dan knew better than to turn on the lights when Phil was in such a state.

Dan stood there a moment longer, blinking rapidly, before sitting down beside Phil. He reached across Phil’s lap, grabbed a bottle, popped it open, sipped from it, and said nothing.

They were touching from shoulder to foot, their dominant hands brushing, the other ones lifting to take swigs from the bottles nearly simultaneously. Neither of them spoke, until Dan was very obviously drinking from an empty bottle. He sighed.

“You okay, Phil?” he said quietly. Phil let out a half amused noise, because the answer was painfully obvious.

“What’s the matter?”

Phil rolled his head against the fridge to look at Dan.

_You,_ he thought.  _You’re the matter. I’m touching you and I feel like you’re light years away. You’re an itch I can’t scratch. A pipe dripping incessantly, and I don’t even want to find the leak because the sound of the water is all I ever hear and I think I’ll go deaf without it. You left a hole in me and if burns every time I exhale. Despite all of that - here you are. And I don’t know if I can handle it anymore._

“Nothing,” was what he said instead, but Dan clearly wasn’t buying it.

“I’m sorry,” Dan said.

“What for?”

“Everything, I guess,” Dan said, staring down at his lap.

Phil wanted to deny his apology, because it wasn’t Dan’s fault that he wasn’t in love with Phil anymore. Maybe it was Phil’s. Maybe it was no one’s. Phil couldn’t say he hadn’t see it coming. Dan hadn’t kissed him as hard, he slept in his own bed, sat on the opposite end of the sofa, forgot how Phil took his coffee. It had driven both of them into the ground because the silence had been maddening until one day Dan had said, “I think we should break up.”

Phil had replied, “Okay.”

But they didn’t know how to be without each other so it took all of two weeks for Dan to move back in. They also didn’t know how to be best friends when faced with the harsh reality that Dan took a piece of Phil with him when he left, and when he came back, shoved a round peg into a square hole.

“Yeah,” was all Phil replied, and a thick silence followed.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

“We were miserable. Who could blame you?”

“Are we not still miserable?” Dan said, his lips forming a sad smile.

“Fair point,” Phil said, and he tried to sound angry, but his voice wouldn’t form the proper intonation.

Dan paused, his voice breaking when he continued:

“It’s too late to fix it, isn’t it?”

“You don’t love me anymore. There’s nothing left to fix.”

“I shouldn’t have left,” Dan repeated, so quietly that Phil knew he was talking mostly to himself.

Phil just shrugged, too far gone to form a more articulate response.

The movement jostled a half-empty bottle, tipping it over and spilling its remaining contents onto the tile. Dan immediately retrieved some paper towels, cleaned up the mess, and tossed the paper towels into the bin.

He stood still for several moments. Phil could see the gears turning in his head, knew that he was deciding between the two options Phil had unintentionally presented him with. If there were ever a time to speak up, it was now.

“You should have stayed gone.”

“Well, don’t sugarcoat it to spare my feelings,” Dan replied sarcastically.

“Do you really want to go there? You loved me - and then you didn’t - and then you left and here you are. What am I supposed to do with that?” Phil’s speech was beginning to slur, the words coming out too slowly and then too quickly.

“I came back because I value our friendship. Is it really that hard for you to try to focus on that?”

“Oh,  _well,_ I’m sorry. Let me just flip a switch and stop loving you. Apparently you’ve got one of those, so it should be easy.”

“It wasn’t a walk in the park for me, Phil! I don’t know what happened, okay? What was I supposed to do? Just pretend everything was fine and carry on?”

“We’ve both been doing that for about a year now, so apparently, it’s not impossible.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fine,” Phil said, hoisting himself up onto unsteady legs. The world went very blurry for several moments, and Phil squeezed his eyes shut. He felt Dan wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“Here, let me help you up the stairs,” Dan said quietly, but Phil just shoved his arm away.

“Don’t touch me,” Phil snapped, and made his wobbly exit. He had to grip the railing on the side of the stairs for dear life, but he managed to make it to his bedroom.

He heard the clatters of Dan rinsing out and tossing the bottles into the recycling bin, and smirked to himself, knowing that Dan was cursing under his breath about having to clean up after Phil.

But, as always, Phil’s anger dissolved into sadness, and the hole in his chest burned around the edges.

He crawled into bed, facing the side where Dan used to sleep, and he felt guilty for snapping. If Dan didn’t want him anymore, he could live with that. What he couldn’t live with was being at each other’s throats and ignoring each other just to avoid hard conversations.

Phil could hear Dan rustling around in his room again - probably out of spite because he knew Phil hated it.

And that was the thing - they knew each other all too well. Leaving things unsaid did almost nothing for them, because they always knew what the other was thinking. Phil knew Dan’s every mannerism and what they all meant, all of his facial expressions, could tell what mood he was in based only on the weight of his footsteps. And if Phil wanted to not be in love with Dan anymore, he had to ignore those things, or at least not take so much pride in knowing them.

It would be difficult, and Phil wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to make the effort. It had been a goddamn year and his feelings for Dan were just as strong. A bit angrier, maybe, and a bit less blindly fond, but they were strong nonetheless, so clearly they weren’t going to go away on their own.

But who was he if he wasn’t the man who loved Dan?

Phil wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. His whole being ached at the thought of Dan’s smile not giving him butterflies, not wanting to cook for him, not caring when Dan inevitably found someone else, not having Dan be his first and last thoughts every day. He had never been in love before, and even if it made him miserable, surely it was better than feeling empty?

_No,_ he told himself.  _It’s not better and you can’t cling to the hope that Dan will love you again; you just can’t. You have to forgive and forget and maybe then you can move on._

Phil folded in on himself, hugging his knees to his chest and letting tears drip onto his neon green pyjama pants. Dan was still pacing around his room, and Phil wanted nothing more than to apologize for upsetting him, but he felt like the hole in his chest might swallow him up completely if he didn’t hold himself together.

So he stayed in bed, silent tears dripping down his cheeks, until he eventually drifted off.

Dan was his last thought.

x

Phil awoke to the sound of an obnoxious buzzer, which did nothing for the terrible pounding in his head. He ignored the noise - Dan could go and sign for whatever package. He wasn’t the one fighting a hangover.

A full ten minutes later, the postman was apparently still waiting, so Phil dragged himself out of bed. He nearly fell over from the dizziness and the pounding that had made its way into his ears, but managed to steady himself enough to get to the staircase.

Mentally cursing the person who invented stairs, he ambled down the steps slowly, nearly losing his footing several times. He managed a brusque interaction with the postman, and full-on groaned when he realized he had to climb back up the steps.

It was slow-going, but Phil made it upstairs and back into their flat in one piece. Thoroughly agitated, he knocked loudly on Dan’s door.

“Delivery for Mr. Howell!” he said, rubbing his temples, and there was no response. “Seriously Dan if you  _ever_ make me get up at eight AM while hungover to get one of your deliveries again I will fill your bed with moths.”

No answer.

Phil opened the door slowly, and scanned Dan’s apparently uninhabited room.  _Where could he possibly have gone to at this hour?_

Phil’s sluggish brain eventually processed what he was seeing: some of Dan’s things were missing. A  _lot_ of Dan’s things were missing.

“Dan?” Phil called out, as loudly as he could, but the sound only echoed.

Phil had been wrong: he was in the universe in which Dan left and stayed gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Original A/N: Thanks to silverluminosity, hearteyeshowell, and mnmminifunsized for their help <3


End file.
